Creating a Private listing for a specific buyer?

[b86fiero]

Hi all,

I've done this in years past but not recently and since the listing form has changed I cannot figure out how to create a private listing for one specific buyer. 

This is for an item I have never listed on eBay but do own. I will not sell it off eBay.  It is for a multi-purchase repeat buyer who messaged me through eBay asking if I have this particular item to complete a set she has been accumulating.  I would very much like to sell this item through eBay directly to her through a private BIN listing.

Would someone kindly walk me through the steps to create a private listing?

Thank you in advance!

[tealt]

This is what I do to sell to a specific buyer.

1) Create a Buy-It-Now listing with a sky high, unrealistic price and Best Offer.

2) Message my buyer that if they will offer at the price we have agreed on, I will accept the offer.

The wild-high price prevents anyone else from doing a BIN, and I can reject any offers from anyone except my buyer.

So far, this has worked for me.

[gagnon234]

What I do is put the user's ID in the title and description . . . as in FOR CRAZYCAT ONLY, PLEASE.

[wastingtime101]

You can make the title "private listing" to discourage others from purchasing. I advise against putting the userid in the listing. As a buyer that would not sit well with me - I like my privacy.

You can list as normal with a ridiculously high price and enable offers. When the buyer is ready to purchase they can make an offer which you can accept.

You can coordinate with the buyer what time they'll be available (check time zone, too) and try to list it at that time.

There is no way to put up a listing and make it exclusive to one buyer, or visible to only that buyer, but these methods generally get the job done so pick which works best for you.

[richard1rst]

I have created a listing with the headline:

Per our discussion

Then in the description I put

Per our discussion

along with obviously the price and shipping.

I advise the buyer in advance what I am doing and then once the listing is up I email them the item # along with a caveat that I will only leave it up for 2 days. The likelihood anyone else is ever going to buy that is zero.

[nobody*s_perfect]

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@tealt wrote:

This is what I do to sell to a specific buyer.

1) Create a Buy-It-Now listing with a sky high, unrealistic price and Best Offer.

2) Message my buyer that if they will offer at the price we have agreed on, I will accept the offer.

The wild-high price prevents anyone else from doing a BIN, and I can reject any offers from anyone except my buyer.

So far, this has worked for me.

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This is what I'd do, too.  I don't see advantage to listing with coy titles and descriptions., and remember those listings will show up in your Sold items, and also in your feedback if they buyer leaves any.

[a_c_green]

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@b86fiero wrote:

This is for an item I have never listed on eBay but do own. I will not sell it off eBay.  It is for a multi-purchase repeat buyer who messaged me through eBay asking if I have this particular item to complete a set she has been accumulating.  I would very much like to sell this item through eBay directly to her through a private BIN listing.

Would someone kindly walk me through the steps to create a private listing?

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Not arguing against the other strategies proposed here, you understand, but my practice for this has always been to set up the listing as a legitimate BuyItNow (with Immediate Payment Required option set) for anyone to get, but then send a link to my interested buyer before the listing actually goes live. (I'll set its starting time to be something in the very near future, such as the top of the hour, so my buyer won't have to wait forever.)

That way, the buyer will be ready to jump on it, but if he decides to ghost me instead for whatever reason, someone else can still come along and buy it.

[slippinjimmy]

Similar to others......

I create a new listing with the Title "custom order + date" (the date is for me so I differentiate with a different custom order).

The listing will include one image for each of the item and a brief summary description (list of items).

I use the Private Listing option so that the actual listing and link does not display on the feedback page (buyer or seller).

Submit the listing, send the buyer a link.

I don't understand the concern "somebody else might buy it first", thing is that it takes time to even be searchable and what are the odds that another buyer is going to want the exact same custom order items.

If it's an international order (many are for me) then I make domestic shipping "free" and only allow sales to the the buyers country.

Why zero for domestic? Because that is the rate eBay will use when calculating FVF's.

[wastingtime101]

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@a_c_green wrote:

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then send a link to my interested buyer before the listing actually goes live. (I'll set its starting time to be something in the very near future, such as the top of the hour, so my buyer won't have to wait forever.)

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How do you get a link for the buyer before the listing goes live @a_c_green? When you use scheduled listings an item number isn't generated until the listing actually goes live. Before that it's just a scheduled draft that can be cancelled.

Granted it's been several years since I've used scheduled listings so things may have changed, but that's how it worked in the past.

In theory you can put up a listing then change the quantity to 0 if you use the OOS setting, then go in and manually update the quantity later, but that seems like a lot of work.

I've always used the high price with offer method because (to me) it's the easiest. I let the buyer know it will be available for 48 hours after which the pricing will be lowered and offer button removed so anybody can purchase.

[b86fiero]

I considered if the buyer might ghost me on the listing.  But since she is a multi repeat buyer I don't think she will.

I am considering doing this:

Title: "(name)  askedforit" . I don't anyone would search for such a title.

Photo: of the actual item - just in case

Description: "(name) knows the details".

BIN price $5,000 with Best Offer.

I'll message her through eBay the exact item title, item number and tell her to offer the price she paid for a specific previous purchase and I'll accept her offer. 

Does that sound like a reasonable plan?

* Kind of hard to understand why eBay does not offer an easy means of creating private sales since eBay would make money off them and might help keep sellers and buyers on the site.

[yuzuha]

This is what I do too. Never had a problem doing it this way.

[nobody*s_perfect]

eBay used to have an option for private listings, in which members would have to contact the seller and be put on the list of approved bidders/buyers.  It had to be discontinued because it was so overused and abused.

[stuff4divas]

@b86fiero   i do what @a_c_green said about setting the listing up as I would any listing, but set the available number as zero.

i then list it, but obviously it will be invisible with the zero available.

I then send my buyer the item# and tell them to let me know when they are ready to pay and I will edit to put the 1 available.

[a_c_green]

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@wastingtime101 wrote:

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@a_c_green wrote:

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then send a link to my interested buyer before the listing actually goes live. (I'll set its starting time to be something in the very near future, such as the top of the hour, so my buyer won't have to wait forever.)

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How do you get a link for the buyer before the listing goes live @a_c_green? When you use scheduled listings an item number isn't generated until the listing actually goes live. Before that it's just a scheduled draft that can be cancelled.

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No, no, it's fine; the item number is generated at the time you upload the listing, even if you've scheduled it to start sometime later on instead of immediately. You can either view the listing as soon as your confirmation popup appears ("Your listing has been scheduled") or select it from your Scheduled Listings page, and just scoop up the link from your browser page as soon as your listing is displayed.

Send that link to your interested buyer and tell them when the link will go live. (It is only viewable by you before it goes live.) I had a sale that way just yesterday morning, AAMOF... 🙂

[wastingtime101]

Thanks for that info. Obviously I haven't used scheduled listings in a while so I wasn't aware they changed the process.

I take it then as soon as you schedule a listing it comes off your free insertion allotment? That's also different from how it used to be where you could cancel (or push out) any scheduled listing before it went live and you wouldn't use up an insertion or get an item number because it was essentially a scheduled draft until it went live.

With a store it didn't make sense to pay for scheduled listings, but now they're lifting that fee I may start using that feature again.